insights into Arneson's dicing?

Hey, Paul---good to see you around here!

Good questions to add to the swiftly growing knowledge-base around this game...

Greg Svenson posts here sometimes. I think there were one or two others. Anyone know?

Paul, in Fight On! #2 there is an article about the first run in Blackmoor, which is actually taken from Greg's website (so you could find it on-line without buying the mag if you don't have it already). A LOT of PCs died in that game...so I'm wondering if perhaps the emergence of 'story' in Arneson's games wasn't a more gradual thing.

This relates to a side discussion about emergent story I have no time for with pasta boiling over on the stove.

But, also this cryptic quotation from Mike Mornard might be worth investigating: "Dave always used miniatures; Gary never did." That's not getting it backwards. Now, always and never are surely too strong - Dave didn't bring the minis into the basement for the immersive scene in the darkness for instance - but it's an interesting thing to put in the mix.

Hi Paul,

1) Player's perspectives on Arneson's games are available from con reports on 1976 and 2006, which give some background beyond the excellent assemblage of quotes in D@D.

2) My sense is that secrecy was an important part of Arneson's method, based on his famous line (which I am badly paraphrasing here) "don't ask me what you need to hit, roll and I'll tell you what happens" and the discussion in the comments at Havard's blog.

Unfortunately I bet that secrecy about what goes on behind the screen (which I think is also part of why Dan's reconstruction job was so difficult) would also prevent an answer to questions of fudging. I'd be interested to hear if his players report rolls in the open, but if no one knows what they refer to (or even if high or low is good) fudging is kind of a non-issue!

One perspective I can contribute comes from that same Gen Con seminar I mentioned at Havard's blog above. The idea of a referee evolved out of a wargaming group that he and Wesely were part of where the rules were a Prussian kriegspiel that was hugely complex and badly-translated enough that the players would argue endlessly about every interpretation. Eventually the two Daves decided that arguing was just what these guys liked to do, and started a new group. Having only the referee know the rules meant both that only one person had to master them, and that there was no scope for rules-lawyering.

Arneson said that this didn't stop people from simulation-lawyering; one of the things that made the Blackmoor fantasy campaign attractive compared to its Napoleonic predecessor was that no one would complain that the dragon breath used in this period couldn't possibly fire at this range during wet weather!